Use of a Smartphone to Improve Hospital Discharge Plan Service

Abstract

Discharge plan service, which affects patients' recovery ratio and hospitals' bed turnover rate is very significant in hospital revenues in recent years. However, the effectiveness of discharge plan service has received little attention. Case managers and clinic specialists in hospitals require the latest clinical history and reports of patients anytime and anywhere in order to promote healthcare quality. Therefore, the shift from health information system (HIS) to mobile medical service system is an unavoidable trend. This article reports the implementation of an intelligent Hospital Discharge Plan Services system, which integrates a smartphone through the hospital wireless network to store/access clinical data without time and space limitation. Based on master-slave architecture, Intelligent Hospital Discharge Plan Services (IHDPS) enables health professionals to access back-end patients' clinical data from the smartphone via an internet connection. IHDPS, through the provision of sufficient patients' physical information from a clinical database, helps case managers can employ decision tree algorithm to evaluate patients' comprehensive conditions for adequate discharge arrangement. The system also reduces the workload of healthcare professionals, promotes healthcare quality and reduces the frequency of patients' in and out of hospital, hence increasing bed turnover rate.